Psalms 40:8

Psalms 40:8

There can be no reasonable doubt whose words these are. Even if the internal evidence were not sufficient, the reference to them in the tenth chapter of Hebrews shows conclusively that they are spoken by Jesus "when He cometh into the world." The words indicate the great rule of Christ's earthly life: what He was continually thinking about and planning to follow, what guided Him through the scenes of this world as truly and as constantly as a ship is guided by her helm. Further, they indicate the delight which it gave Him to follow this rule. There was no sense of pain in doing it; on the contrary, there was in it the pleasure which attends all free, spontaneous activity; nay, there was pleasure rising to delight in its highest elevation. The delight of Jesus in doing the Father's will we see alike in what He did and in what He suffered. In what light did that will present itself to Him, so that, while He obeyed it with such profound submission, He felt in so doing such intense delight?

I. In the first place, He felt that intrinsically its claims were overwhelming. They were such as to admit of no rival and no compromise. To the mind of Jesus the Divine claims were infinitely sacred, august beyond conception, never to be tampered with; all things vile and horrible were concentrated in the spirit that refused absolute submission to the will of God.

II. The Divine will was very dear to Jesus from its connection with the work and the reward of redemption. Mark here the bearing of an unselfish end on an unselfish rule of life. The purpose for which Christ lived and died was unselfish to bless others with eternal life; and the fondness with which He cherished this unselfish end exalted the unselfish rule. Living in the joy of the coming blessedness of His people, He could serenely and contentedly bow to that will by which their glory was secured.

III. Yet again, there was delight from the very fact that there could be no collision between the Father's will and His own. His human will, in all its deliberate and final actings, was absorbed by God; and this in itself was peace.

W. Blaikie, Glimpses of the Inner Life of our Lord,p. 29.

References: Psalms 45 Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 1; J. G. Murphy, Book of Daniel,p. 44.